Category: Press and typeface identification
Later topic: What is this part used for?
Earlier topic: H.B. Rouse Press - any photos or illustrations...

Wood Type ID

Andrew Churchman has asked me to identify the wood type shown below. It looks very familiar, but my area of knowledge is Victorian type. I can’t find it in my later wood type specimens.

If anyone can help identify it, I would be much obliged.
-Steve

image: Caps.jpg

Caps.jpg

image: Lowercase.jpg

Lowercase.jpg

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I believe it is Garamont (or Garamond). Do you know who manufactured the wood type?—Bob

Yes, I believe you’re right on the Garamont, Bob. That uc “J” was a helpful clue. Thanks so much to you and Mr. Saxe!

The font is definitely a Garamond, but I cant for the life of me find a catalog of any manufacturer that offered it. Perhaps it was cut in Europe?

Rick

If I am not mistaken, a few characters show slots on the bottom, similar to Showcard types, but it may be a different make. See the following page for examples of the Showcard faces, which includes Garamond Light.
https://archive.org/stream/ShowcardMachineCo.Catalog/Showcard%20Machine%...
I can’t say who actually manufactured the wood type.
Dave Greer

Hi Dave,

You are correct. I did not think to look into my old Line-O-Scribe and Showcard Machine Co. catalogs, and now that I have looked, Garamond Light is shown in both of them!

Your catalog is ‘newer’ than mine are and I was somewhat surprised to see Pueblo Bold shown in your catalog.

Pueblo Bold is actually Davida Bold which was designed in 1963 by Louis Minott for an International Typeface design contest sponsored by a phototype lettering company in Florida. There were a dozen or so winners, and Davida Bold was one of them. Don’t have that info in front of me right now. The reason that I know this is because I have a font of Davida Bold cast in metal. It has a very “antique” look to it but was actually created during the psychadelic (sp?) rock poster era in the early 60’s.

Just another bit of typographic trivia.

Rick

I finally got around to checking my notes on Davida Bold. It was actually designed in 1965 by Louis Minot. In that year there was a call for entrees for a National Typeface Competition, sponsored by Visual Graphics Corp. of Miami, FL. 15 winners were selected and Davida Bold was one of them.

Rick